


Taking Roots

by TisNotButAPhaseMother



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Brotherly Love, Hurt/Comfort, Please Don't Hate Me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 01:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15920076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TisNotButAPhaseMother/pseuds/TisNotButAPhaseMother
Summary: It's one hour and thirty-six minutes after midnight, someone is singing Lobachevsky in the yard and Roman P. Knight gets a phone-call.





	Taking Roots

_"...n't shade your eyes,_  
_but plagiarize, plagiarize, pla-gia-rize!_  
_Only be sure always to call it, please, 'research'."_

Roman's eyes fluttered open to a complete darkness, the sounds of soft snoring from various parts of the room, and a cheerful voice drunkenly belting out Lobachevsky flowing in through the partially opened window, slightly muted by the distance. 

_"...y life is not the same,_  
_and Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name._  
_Oy!_  
_Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach..."_

His brain felt muddy and heavy and Roman turned onto his other side, eyes already closing again, determined to not wake up fully. Amazingly, it worked. His face pressed firmly into the pillow and he found himself in that rare, magical place of being half asleep and half aware of the fact, sliding into the unconsciousness with the ease of a spoon sinking into a jar of melted honey. It was that perfect phase of falling asleep when part of your mind is already there, connecting every outside noise and every inner thought into an intricate labyrinth of nonsense and deepest truths of the universe that seem utterly crazy in the morning. 

He felt content, and warm, and comfortably heavy. He was strangely aware of the way his body, heated with sleep, pressed and curved alongside the mattress, dipping it, the way his right cheek and eye and the tip of his nose pushed into the pillow, the way the air was almost unnoticeably chillier the closer he was laying to the cold wall. He more recognized than felt the slight drop in the temperature on his face and left arm, the other hand safely tucked under his pillow. 

_"...of locally Euclidean metrization  
of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold..."_

He felt himself slipping deeper and deeper into the dreamland, the words of the song creating a surreal background noise to his imagination, and he found his mind in the state of an almost utter bliss, even with the locally Euclidean metrization buzzing, buzzing in the back of his head this _whole time-_

His eyes opened again, now in a startled confusion when he realized the buzzing was not, in fact, in the back of his head, but rather under it, and it has been there for some time now. Even before his mind understood what he was actually hearing, his hand gave him a courtesy of moving in a well learned manner deeper under his pillow and fishing out his phone, glaring lightning-bolts with the incoming call. The shine of it left Roman blinded and shielding his face before he had a pleasure to catch the caller's ID. 

He parted his fingers and, with a scrunched up expression that was decidedly _not_ going onto his Instagram page, peered at the display. It read: "Gramma  <3". And above that: "1:36 a. m.". 

Now positively more awake, Roman scrambled out of the bed as fast as his sleep-drunken muscles allowed him, mindful not to get trapped in the blanket and fall on one of the sleeping silhouettes on the floor. The movie night that they planned with the group for the end of the exam season took a disappointing turn when they have all found themselves too exhausted to pay any attention, and instead ready to climb under the covers and sleep for approximately seven years. Their fate looked tragic, until Logan, partially pronounced dead at the time and officially Done with anything written under the moonlight and seen under the sun, came with an amazing idea: Opposite Movie Night. If normally movie nights consist of staying up worryingly late, snacking on garbage and falling asleep half into the fifth movie, they shall rebel today. They'll do that, Logan explained in slightly slurred words, gesturing sloppily from where he basically laid in the armchair, by going to bed early, getting a healthy amount of sleep, having a filling breakfast in the morning and _then_ watching movies, properly rested, content and attentive, until they actually feel like moving and maybe doing something productive with their evening. Screw the system.

Everyone agreed to that idea almost immediately. One, it was fun, two, it was even more fun considering _Logan_ came up with it, and it was so typically him but also very strangely _not_ him at all in its silliness and one must appreciate ever such magical instance, and three, as nagging as he might have been sometimes, Logan was their Beloved Nerd of Many Helpful Observations and they have all noticed the way his tone took on a pleading edge and his eyes hopefully searched their faces when explaining his ingenious plan. 

They could be jerks sometimes, but they weren't monsters. 

And that was why now a very drowsy, dishevelled and not truly comprehending Roman found himself jumping unsteadily over the two figures sleeping on his bedroom floor, currently covered with pillows, a still buzzing phone clutched to his chest as to not accidentally shine the bright light on the second bed where two other bodies laid, entangled together messily in their slumber. 

He really wished he could snap a picture of Logan and Patton like this, but that would mean ignoring the call from his grandma, and why the hell would his grandma call him in the morning if it wasn't something important. His mind already had a myriad of helpful notes on what could have happened; she could have broken her hip. She forgot to take her meds, and was now confused and lost in the city and couldn't remember who to call for help. There were burglars in her house. There was a fire. His dog died. Oh no, please, don't let it be his dog. Well, technically _their_ dog, but he was born first and- 

With a pause he took a note of two things: One, he has just completely turned into his younger brother right now. And two, he has somehow made it into the hallway.

Closing the door behind himself as quietly as he could, the phone was already pressed to his ear and he was sliding the accept the call button. 

"Gramma!" he half-whispered, a bit out of breath from the sudden extortion as he softly padded towards the bathroom. "Gramma - hi! What's up? Is everything okay?" 

There was a silence on the line for a few seconds in which he reached the bathroom, and his heartbeat picked up in its rate. He flicked on the lights and nudged the door closed behind him. "Gra-" 

"Roman," said a shaking voice on the other side of the line, and he stopped where he was pulling his hand off the doorknob. It sounded breathy, but in comparison to his own extorted voice, this was heavier. More raw. As if she was either having trouble breathing for a prolonged period of time, or was currently crying. "Roman." 

"Gramma?" He said, and his own voice sounded small. His mind was racing; he needed to stay calm. He needed to stay calm and helpful. His tone automatically softened into tentative and measured as he asked: "Gramma, what happened? It's okay, gramma- can you tell me what's wrong?" 

There was another pause in the speakers, but this time, he could hear her choked of breaths, as if she was trying to calm herself to talk and failing, and something cold and ugly and terrifying wrapped around his heart and _squeezed_. 

"Roman," she said again, and now it was obvious she was crying. Roman listened, still locked in the same strained position, his shoulders drawn up with tension, his trembling hand resting on the doorknob, feet posed crookedly as he was mid-turning away from the door. "Roman- I'm-I'm so sor-ry." 

His heart was beating in the mad staccato against his rib-cage, but his voice sounded leveled. Distant. Numb. _With fear, absolutely rigid with fear, and Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name! Oy!_ "For what, Gramma?"

She sobbed, and as she tried to talk through her weeping and unfulfilling breathes, her voice took on a grotesque similarity to a goats bleating. "I-it-t's...-gil, he-he-"

"Gramma, Gramma wait! Slow down," Roman's normally melodic and boisterous voice was unnaturally clipped and calm. "Tell me what happened. Virgil? Did you say Virgil?"

If the scene was taking place in a crowded cafe and Roman stood dressed to the T with a drink in one hand and the phone in the other, his usual nonchalant posture completing the picture, to an outside observer he would look disinterested, a little impatient and maybe slightly annoyed. He could pretend he's just a normal guy getting his coffee and being bratty about having to interact with his grandmother.

But he was not in the cafe, there was no outside observer and Roman was standing alone in a cold bathroom, dressed only in a white shirt with tiny golden birds in flight on it and a loopy sign "Sweet Dreams" and boxers, still in that frozen position that made him look like a character from some fairy tale castle cursed into an endless slumber, forever captured in time as he was going about his day, mid-step and unassuming.

Like this, it was obvious Roman wasn't annoyed. Roman was _scared_.

He heard his grandmother manage a few gulping breaths, the speakers rattling with the force of her shaky exhales, before she spoke again. And later, Roman wished she didn't. He wished he hung up, right then and there, and went back to sleep, and when he woke up, maybe God would have meanwhile reconsidered his decisions and made this all into some kind of a fever dream, something that would disturb him in the awakening but would quickly evaporate out of his memory, too fast to leave marks, gone by the time he went to brush his teeth. 

Slower, with voice thick, she said: "H-he's in the... they fo-found hi-im in the garbage c-container this ev-vening."

Roman didn't comprehend her words. They sounded crazy. His mind refused to take them in, instead chewing them over and spitting them out like a particularly disgusting brand of bubble-gum. "What?" he asked, and it came out as a breathless giggle, hysterical and mocking and amused at the same time. ~~_Sweet dreams, and Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name!_~~

" _What?_ "

"Garbage, they. Th-they f-found him," it sounded as if it cost her an inhuman amount of strength to even pronounce the words, her crying turning into choking. "He didn't c-c-c-come ho-home from sch-school this aft-ternoon, and-and we didn't- he so-sometimes. Sometimes does it. Y-you kno-now? Gets lost, that boy does. In his h-head- and I told y-your mom, I-I told her: _'Let him be a kid.'_ I told her that, R-Romie. _'He's fif-fift-fteen. L-le-let him be a kid.'_ And s-so she- didn't. Call h-him. She didn't call him, Romie. She let him b-be a kid."

The floor was vanishing under his feet, or rather, turning into a silken, white mush that was now swallowing him whole. He felt himself go, gradually and smoothly, down, down, down, first his ankles, then knees, then thighs. The world around him was going up while Roman sank lower and lower into the softness, lightheaded. Somewhere far away, he heard a loud thud, and ignored it.

Let him be a kid, _and who deserves the credit? And who deserves the blame? Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevski-_

"A-and, and, then it was e-eight o'clock, and the b-boy was not ho-home, and your mom and I w-were wor-worried, and so she c-called his p-phone-"

More breathing. An inhale. This one was long, rattly and sounded like a string sliding quickly against a sharp edge.

"Didn't pick it up. Phone was turned o-off. So your mom called the p-police, and they- they came, and asked what p-police asks, and said, said: _'He will be with so-some buddies, you'll see.'_ S-some bud-dies! But they lo-'ooked anyway bec-cause you mom was cr-crying. And then it's half past mid-midnight and Vir-Virg-gil is not home, and the b-boy doesn't do th-that, you kn-know him Roman, too careful he is, you know how he gets, alw-ways so uptight..."

Roman sat on the floor, completely motionless, wide eyes staring at something far, far beyond the white tiles on the walls, and thought about how his brother gets.

He gets worried. And quiet. And goofy. And lost. He gets lost in his head sometimes, he does that. Even until half past midnight, apparently _~~with no signal, no signal in his head, he wondered how they'll find him, will they just take the police dogs and snatch him out of there~~_ -

"They, uh. They." She sobbed. Ugly, throaty, heavy sobs. Roman felt their echo rattle in his rib-cage like an angry wasp.

"They got a phone-call. From someone... else. I don't- they said. The p-police lady called, and she sounded str-range, and she as-asked: _'Does your s-son have a tat-tattoo of st-stars on his ar-rm?'_ And they al-already k-knew he does, your m-mom told them, of course she did! But she said _'Yes'_ anyway, and the wom-woman, the woman-"

The wall of tiles seemed to go up to infinite lengths, looming over Roman and falling, curling over his collapsed form like a tidal wave, rolling into a spiral with his body in the middle of it, engulfing him, looping around and around and around-

His head was spinning, so he laid down completely. Flattened himself with the floor. It still spun.

"The woman," there was a sound between a bark and a sob, and the old lady panted heavily. Roman felt a pang of worry, muted by... something. Everything felt muted. Nothing was real anymore. His left cheek and forehead and a tip of his nose and half of his mouth were smashed into the cold floor, and he remembered cold walls felt nice, too, and so he dragged himself over to the nearest one and pressed into to it, head to toe.

It felt safe. Steady. He pressed into it firmer.

"They s... said that som-someone found... a backpack. B-backpack, and- an ar-a-rm. And then they act-actually searched and f-found the rest-"

She broke down, after that. Roman listened to her loud, helpless cries, and felt nothing. He felt absolutely nothing, because this didn't make sense. Did it? It didn't.

They couldn’t find ‘an arm’. That arm belonged to his little brother. If they found an arm, they found the whole of Virgil, too. That’s how the world should have _worked_.

With his forehead pressed into the wall, laying down, he only saw white. Endless white. He wondered if this was what it felt like for Virge to get lost in his head, and how will they find him before their mom throws a fit, and she will probably ground him so bad-

"The garbage ba-bags, Roman! They stu-stuffed him- they stuffed him into- each part of him. As if he isn't a b-boy but a _r-roadki-kill-_ "

His grandmother’s angry, loud cry made him flinch, so he cuddled impossibly closer to the wall. It was safe there. Cold and safe. Maybe he'll find Virge out in the white somewhere, and will drag him home by the ear like a good big brother he is. He will drag him home to their well-pissed and waiting-

"Mom," he said. His voice didn't belong to him. It came out scratched and childishly lost.

"Hospital, Romie," his grandmother said, and Roman thought he has never heard her sound quite so _old_. "Y-your mama couldn't tak-take it. Th-they took her i-in so she would calm- ...calm down. It's why I'm cal-cal- -it's why it's m-me."

He nodded against the wall, staring into it. The cold shiny ceramic dragged against his skin. "Okay."

"Y-you must... come home, boy. Come home to your mama."

He nodded again, expression tame. "Okay."

"Okay," his grandmother half-whispered, and she sounded distracted. Scared. Roman thought he was scared, too, but wasn't sure. He couldn't really feel much. Except for the dragging of the tiles against his forehead when he nodded, and so he did it again. And again. And again.

Peaceful, timid nods, as if he was listening to a soothing song and not his grandmother's wet gasps. Okay. _Okay. Okay, let him be a kid. Let him be a kid in the trash bag. Sweet dreams, and plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize! Only be sure always to call it, please, 'research'._

"Okay."

Eventually, they hung up. Roman’s eyes were filled with white.

· · ─────── · ·

Patton woke up to a blurry green-checkered wall right in front of his face. He slowly blinked a few times, confused, before he shifted his head up and was met with a sight of very messy short brown hair on the back of someone’s head. 

Logan. 

Patton smiled, warmth filling him up from the simple fact that he just woke up next to one of his dearest friends and they were already adorable, and it was only – what time was it? His unfocused eyes lazily slipped to the window. A cold, white, early morning light tiptoed in through the curtains. It couldn’t be more than seven in the morning. Maybe even six. 

He turned on his back and stretched languidly, careful not to push the sleeping workaholic off the bed, scratching at his chest absentmindedly. He felt good. Good, and lazy. On one hand, he could go back to sleep and get up when everyone else would (given that they’d manage to wake Remy up before noon, the chances of which were drastically slim). Or, on the other hand, he could surprise all of them with breakfast. 

A smile immediately spread across his face. A surprise breakfast! He hadn’t done one of those in ages. Although his mind was still sleepy, he felt his heart already waking up with excitement, and knew his choice for the morning.

Sitting up, he reached over Logan’s torso to get his glasses. Seeing his and Logan’s sight-aids neatly folded next to each other on his bedside table, an image of a married old couple popped up in his head, and he stifled a giggle as he put them on. A quick glance down confirmed that Logan wasn’t disturbed from his slumber, and he escaped the bed as quietly as he possibly could. 

He willed his - admittedly short - legs to make a giant step over Dorian and somehow managed not to stomp on Remy, and was just in the middle of not stepping onto his glasses, either, when he noticed that Roman’s bed was empty. 

Patton blinked. Although Roman had a much better record with Logan regarding his sleep schedule, it wasn’t like him to be up and about this early, either. This morning truly was special in many ways. 

He finished his fieldtrip across the room with a small jump over someone’s backpack, feeling very much like Bilbo Baggins going on an adventure, and slipped out of the door. If Roman feels up to it, they could make the breakfast together. The thought made him grin again. If the kiddo had troubles sleeping last night, this could cheer him up. Or they could listen to some music and podcasts and chat while Patton cooked. But bathroom first. 

He was surprised by the light coming out from under the bathroom door, and paused. There was an utter silence. He tentatively raised his hand to give the door a knock. “Kiddo?” 

More silence. No sign that someone was in there whatsoever. He frowned. Maybe Roman went to the bathroom this morning and simply forgot to turn the lights off. Just to be sure, he knocked once more and called out softly. “Hey, Ro? You in there?” 

After another lack of response, Patton has decided it was safe to deem the bathroom empty and opened the door. 

The figure sitting on the floor was unexpected, and Patton jumped back with a muted yelp before he realized it was just Roman. “Ro,” the word was somehow breathed out with both relief and worry. “You scared me! Whatchya’ doing on the floor, sweetie?” 

He stepped back into the bathroom, and noticed a number of things in a rapid succession, the alarm bells in his head slowly starting to ring louder and louder with each one.

Roman was sitting on the floor, legs stretched out in front of him, back straight and in one line with the wall. It was cold in the bathroom, and he seemed to be sitting there for some time, yet he only wore his sleeping shirt and boxers. His hands rested limply in his lap, covering a turned off phone. With a gradually rising panic, Patton noted Roman’s face. It was blank, and paler than he could ever remember it being, except for the tired, swollen circles under the strangely glistening eyes. He sat, breathing deeply, eerily still and staring into the opposite wall as if he didn’t even hear Patton come in.

Patton was kneeling by his side in seconds, hands already hovering above broad shoulders. “Honey? …Ro, sweetie?? Did something happen? Talk to me, please.” 

For a moment, he thought Roman was going to ignore him, and the panic swirling in his chest already urged him to get up and fetch Logan for help, or shake Roman, or shout something. But then Roman turned his head to face him, the look in his eyes open and completely, gut-wrenchingly vulnerable, and Patton’s voice died in his throat. 

A beat. Roman blinked slowly, staring into Patton’s eyes with that same unnervingly tame expression that was so decidedly _not_ Roman that he felt his hands curling into fists against his will.

When Roman’s high-pitched voice finally parted the silence, his wide eyes still locked firmly with Patton’s, it was soft and frail like a birch bark and the absolute confusion soaking it caused Patton’s mind to stutter, taking a while to process the meaning of the words.

“My little brother just died...” 

Roman’s expression wasn’t sad. It wasn’t shocked. It wasn’t upset. 

As the message of the sentence dawned on Patton, so did the fact that Roman looked utterly, terrifyingly lost.


End file.
